COP Warns Public of Radioactive Waste Dangers in Sewage Plants

Los Angeles Times

Citing evidence of contamination in 14 municipal sewer systems around
the country over the past decade, the U.S. Government Accounting Office
warned Tuesday of the danger of radioactive waste in the sludge and ash
formed at sewage treatment facilities and often recycled into fertilizer
and compost.

In a report released to Congress, the GAO does not speak of an imminent
threat to public health. But it does raise concerns for people who work
with material that is subject to contamination and contends that the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the agency that oversees the handling of
radioactive materials, has not been monitoring the amount of radioactivity
collecting at sewage treatment plants.

NRC officials acknowledged to U.S. Senate committee Tuesday that
radioactive materials was found in sewage sludge, but that amounts of
radioactivity "were below levels that would cause concern for public health
and safety.'' Still, they said, enough contamination existed to require
clean-ups in some cases.

Legally discharged by hospitals, laboratories and a variety of
manufacturing companies, limited quantities of radioactive waste matter
regularly are flushed into the nation's sewer systems where dilution is
supposed to render the material harmless.

However, the GAO report points to several cases where, instead of
dispersing, the radioactive materials re-concentrated in the sludge and ash
that is filtered out of the waste water passing through treatment
plants.